Broken
by Terraline Brooks
Summary: A short insight into the Draco Malfoy we never see. This is the boy behind the mask of indifference and the regrets he has.
1. Broken Dragon

  This story is a little insight into the character of Draco Malfoy as we've never seen him before-stripped of all his masks.  Please review to let me know if you would like a sequel of any kind. 

Title: Broken

Author: Terraline Ashley Brooks

Date Written: April 22, 2003

            We hear them every year, the quiet whispers through the halls whenever we pass.  Evil, slimy, Death Eaters.  They think they're so quiet, so clever.  What do they know anyway?  What do they know about our House, our families?  They whisper about me most of all.  Malfoy.  Oftentimes with fear, reverence.  Yes, that's what money will buy you.  Fear.  Isolation.  But it never bought me Slytherin, I got that on my own.  What, your thinking, is he talking about?  Not that I have to explain anything to you, but for my own amusement… 

            From the time I was young I have been given the money to do anything I wish.  When I was five I could make an adult shiver in his shoes.  This taught me of power.  And I reveled in it.  Because of my father's teachings, I assumed I was better then everyone, smarter, richer, faster, more important.  I got what I wished, shouldn't that say something?  But as I grew, with no friends, no companions that mattered, I came to resent this 'power'.  It was not mine.  It belonged to the Malfoy name.  I ran away the year I realized this.  Into a park.  But then father came and dragged me home.  It was the first time he hit me.  I was nine.  His fists came more frequently after that.  To teach me lessons.  And when he didn't want the bruises to show, he used the Unforgivables.  And as I grew, I learned to do as he said, become the Malfoy heir and reveal in the power and fear our name brought to the lives of others.  

            And then I met him.  Blasted Potter and his little friend Weasley.  In Potter's eyes, I saw what I had seen so often in my own.  Self loathing, a fear of the world around me and loneliness, plain and simple.  Loneliness for simple companionship.  I looked into his eyes and saw me.  I was so stupid, offering my friendship to him that way.  Of course the bloody bullock would want to keep the first person who'd shown him kindness.  And what do I do?  I insult that infuriating red head.  And now I am alone once more.  Only now I'm older, smarter…meaner.  I go home each summer to hard fists that build walls around my heart, and the indifferent eyes of my mother.  And every year I come back and see the same walls, the same bruises in Potter's eyes that I feel in my own, but will never show.  

            If I could talk to him once without getting so terrified that I lash out instead of ask, if I could let go of the fear he'll laugh or tell his friends of what I want to tell him, if I could just for one second forget I am the stupid heir of the Malfoy fortune and name and just be the person I see in the mirror when I'm too tired to pretend anymore, I could have him.  I could be friends with Potter who'd understand my past, and Weasley who would teach me of real family and Granger who would help me when I was in trouble no matter what because of loyalty to me as a person, not as a name… No.  I guess it's not just Harry I want anymore, it's Ron and Hermione, too.  Because though I'll never admit it, they are everything I want in friends.  Together, they are everything. 

            The only thing I got on my own was the Slytherin house.  The hat saw how clever I'd been at deceiving my family, my father and how much I wanted to succeed.  I'm not evil, not everyone in our house is, even less then you'd think.  We are not our parents, we are not Death Eaters.  But we are all so afraid of that dark power we've been beaten, threatened with that we dare not trust even each other.  So we are mean and petty and just plain evil to the other Houses because they just don't take the time to see what-who we really are.  Slytherin is the only thing that I ever got on my own, it is the only thing that is truly mine.  

My name is Draco Malfoy and I am a sixth year Slytherin student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  And I am very close to broken.


	2. Missing Love

You broke my heart the first time you looked at me without love in your eyes.  I saw you gaze down, after I had fixed the vase Dudley had knocked me into, with hate and a little fear, though I was too young to know what it was at the time.  I didn't know why the vase had knitted itself back together without any glue, all I knew was that I had looked at the broken shards and wished it was whole again.  How little I knew back then.  How was I to know that by fixing that blue vase I would leave my life in the fragments it was supposed to be in?  How could I know that my room would be changed to a small cupboard under the stairs?  How was I to know that you would raise your hand against me in the months to come because I broke a dish or burned a piece of toast?  You broke my heart when you looked down on my without love in your eyes. 

            From then on I was just 'boy' to the family.  I no longer got presents at Christmas,  or candy at Easter.  I didn't get a cake on my birthday or even a smile.  I was five.  You'd think I would have forgotten already, but I can't.  I didn't know why you suddenly hated me, not really.  Not until Hagrid came that year and explained it all to me, how my mother had been a witch, my father a wizard, how they had died and left you with me.  But I still didn't understand why you loved me those first few years.  I didn't understand what made you hate me.  Was it just the magic?  Was that all you hated about me?  The magic?  Part of me-a very small part-wishes that I was never a wizard.  I wouldn't have this weight on my shoulders, Cedric's death on my hands, and I would have had your love.  I would have had a family.  But then I look at the Weaselys, at Ron and Hermione, and even Neville and think-they won't abandon me, not for magic, or lack of magic, or my connection to an evil lord.  They love me.  This is family.  

            But that little part of me still wonders, what if…


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